Automatic precharge adjuster

ABSTRACT

An automatic precharge gas pressure adjuster for a hydraulic desurger for automatically adjusting the precharge gas pressure in response to operating changes in system fluid pressure thereby maintaining a constant volume of precharge gas in the desurger. The adjusting unit comprises a cylinder divided into two chambers by a spring-biased differential-area piston. The system fluid pressure communicates with the chamber facing the first or largest area piston face while precharge gas communicates with the chamber facing the second or smallest area piston face. To assure the precharge gas pressure will be adjusted for changes in system operating pressure only, and not for mere surges, snubbing restrictions are placed in the means connecting the hydraulic system with the precharge gas adjusting unit.

i i I! I I mte States atent 1151 3,672,402 Bloemer June 27, 1972 1 AU O C PRECHARGE JUSTER 2,875,786 3/1959 Shelly ..138/30 [72] Inventor: John W. Bloemer, Mentor, Oh1o v I Primary Examiner Houst.on S Jr [73] Assignee: Eaton Yale & Towne, Inc., Cleveland, Attorney-Teagno & Toddy Ohio 22 Filed: Sept. 14, 1970 [57] ABSTRACT An automatic precharge gas pressure adjuster for a hydraulic 1 l. N 71,947 [2 1 App 0 desurger for automatically ad ustlng the precharge gas pressure in response to operating changes in system fluid pressure [52] US. Cl ..l38/31, 91/165, 91/417, ther by maintaining a constant volume of precharge gas in the 98/134 desurger. The adjusting unit comprises a cylinder divided into [51] Int. Cl ..F16l 55/04 two chambes by a Springbiased diff ti L piston The [58] Fleld of Search ..138/2631; 91/165, System fluid pressure communicates with the chamber f i 91/417; 92/134 the first or largest area piston face while precharge gas communicates with the chamber facing the second or smallest area [56] (defences Cned piston face. To assure the precharge gas pressure will be ad- UNITED STATES PATENTS I v justed for changes in system operating pressure only, and not for mere surges, snubbmg restrictions are placed 1n the means 1.663.647 1923 Brush connecting the hydraulic system with the precharge gas ad- 1,952,9l6 3/1934 Etten ...138/31 justing unit. 2,099,368 11/1937 Levy... ...92/l34 2,815,008 12/ l 957 Hirt ..92/134 8 Claims, 2 Drawing Figures PATENTEDJUHZ? 1972 3, 672,402

IIIIIIIIII VIIIIIIIIIA INVENTOR.

JOHN M. BL OEME'I? A TTORNEYS AUTOMATIC PRECI-IARGE ADJUSTER BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to automatic precharge gas pressure control devices for hydraulic desurgers, accumulators or the like, and more particularly to an automatic precharge gas pressure adjusting unit utilizing a spring-biased piston'having two faces of different area hereinafter referred to as a differential area piston.

Hydraulic desurgers and accumulators, to be operable in a system with variable operating pressure levels, require means for adjusting the precharge gas pressure to maintain a substantially constant volume of precharge gas in the desurger or accumulator.

A substantially constant precharge gas volume is required to enable the desurger or accumulator to compensate for pressure surges and prevent damage to the desurger or accumulator bladder or accumulator piston as the case may be. Ideally this adjustment will be automatically made requiring no external adjustment or manual supervision. To assure that adjustments occur only when system operating pressure changes and not at mere surges this and earlier adjusting units utilize snubbing restrictions in the connection between the adjusting unit and the hydraulic system.

Earlier automatic precharge adjusting units have utilized equal area pistons. A major problem of the equal area piston devices was if the flow rates to both sides of the piston were not properly balanced or controlled the precharged gas volume in the desurger would drastically change with changes in system pressure and would not return to optimum operating volume when equilibrium was finally reached. Also, if the aforementioned snubbing restrictions become blocked the precharge gas volume in the desurger would drastically change with changes in system pressure and would not return to optimum operatingvolume when the restrictionsbecame unblocked. The present invention utilizes aspring-biased, differential-area piston which will return the precharged volume to an optimum operating level when equilibrium is reached or the snubbing restrictions become unblocked.

An object of this invention is to provide an improved hydraulic desurger or the like.

A further object of this invention is to provide an improved automatic precharge gas adjuster in which the precharge gas volume of a desurger or accumulator will be maintained at a substantially constant level by ferential-area piston.

These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the specification read in conjunction with the drawings.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION the use of a spring-biased dif- The precharge adjuster generally comprises a cylinder di-- vided into two chambers by a spring-biased differential-area piston. Snubbing restrictions are placed between the system and both chambers to assure the precharge pressure will be adjusted to changes in operating pressure only, and not in response to mere system surges. The first of said chambers is faced by the first or largest area piston face and is in fluid communication with the system pressure. The secondjof said chambers is faced by the second or smallest area piston face and communicates with and controls the volume and pressure of the precharged gas. The piston is spring biased in the direction towards the largest area piston face. The use of a spring-biased differential-area piston permits automatic correction of the desurgers precharge gas volume, as well as precharge gas pressure irrespective of the relative flow rates through the two snubbing restrictions.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING FIG. 1 A schematic illustration of the invention as utilized with a hydraulic piston accumulator.

FIG. 2 A partial schematic illustrating an embodiment of the invention as utilized with a hydraulic desurger.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Referring to FIG. 1 in which a schematic illustration of one form of the invention will be seen, the accumulator unit is indicated generally at 10. The accumulator illustrated is divided into a lower fluid chamber 11 and an upper precharge gas chamber 12 by movable piston 13. It should be noted that the area of lower face 13a of the piston is essentially equal to the area of upper face 13b.

In those applications utilizing a hydraulic desurger 110, as seen in FIG. 2, the movable member 113 will be a bladder made of rubber or a like suitable material. The desurger is divided into a fluid chamber 111 and a precharge gas chamber 112 by the bladder 113. The exterior surface area 113a of bladder 113 exposed to precharge gas pressure is substantially equal to interior surface area l13b exposed to fluid or system pressure. As the remainder of the system structure and operation is identical for both accumulator and desurger applications only the accumulator application will be described in detail.

Referring again to FIG. 1, lower chamber 1 1 communicates with the hydraulic system 20 through conduit 21. The hydraulic system 20 also communicates through conduit 22 and snubbing restriction 23 with the automatic precharge pressure control unit 30. The pressure control unit 30 comprises a generally cylindrical member 31 divided by difi'erential area piston 40 into a first chamber 32 and a second chamber 33. Chamber 33 communicates with upper precharge gas chamber 12 of the desurger 10 through conduit 34 and snubbing restriction 23a.

Differential area piston 40 has a first face 41 which is larger in surface area than its second face 42. Piston face 41 is exposed to the pressure in chamber 32 while piston face 42 is exposed to the pressure in chamber 33. The piston is resiliently biased to the right by spring 43.

Lower chamber 11 and lower face 13a of accumulator piston 13 are exposed to system pressure. First face 41 of differential area piston 40 and chamber 32 are exposed to system operating pressure.

Upper chamber 12 and upper face 13b of accumulator piston 13 are exposed to precharge gas pressure as are second fluid pressure in chamber 11 equals the system operating fluid pressure in chamber 32 at balanced conditions. Thus to maintain differential area piston 40 in a fixed position, the combined force of spring 43 and precharge gas pressure acting on face 42 must equal the force of system fluid pressure acting on face 41.

The formulas involved are:

F P X A and F K x AL Where F mm" force due to pressure F force due to spring P= magnitude of pressure A area acted on by pressure K spring constant AL= deflection of spring from neutral position Thus, at balanced conditions auatem operatin pressure prechame m muure F ew-Ina 43 external visual indication of system operating pressure. Of

course the stem 50 may also cooperate with the various types of limit switches (not shown) which will shut down the system or activate an alarm (not shown) when a pressure greater or less than a predetermined maximum or minimum pressure respectively is experienced.

The operation of the automatic precharge adjuster 30 will now be discussed describing an increase in system operating pressure only. However it will be understood that the adjuster will operate similarly in the event of a decrease in operating pressure. In other words the principal of operation is the same for both increases and decreases in system operating pressure. As the fluid pressure in hydraulic system increases the pressure in chambers 1 l and 32 and upon piston faces 13a and 41 will also increase. The piston 13 will move upward compressing the gas in chambers 12 and 33 until it equals the pressure of the system and thus the pressure and resulting forces on faces 13a and 13b will be equal.

The increased system pressure will also cause piston 40 to move to the left until the increased force from spring 43 caused by increased AL equals the force of the increased pressure on the amount of area by which piston face 41 exceeds face 42, or A A This leftward motion of piston 40 will return piston 13 to substantially its original position due to the fact that faces 13a and 13b are at equal pressure and constant precharge volume in the desurger will be maintained.

It will be seen that for any given system pressure within the established operating range of the desurger, the piston 40 will assume one and only one position. At such position the force of system operating pressure acting upon face 41, namely P x A equals the sum of the force from spring 43, namely K AL and the force of precharge gas pressure acting upon face 42, namely P X A Thus, by proper selection of the cylinder 31, differential area piston 40 and spring 43a substantially constant precharge volume may be maintained in the precharge chamber 12 of accumulator l0.

The above constant precharge gas volume characteristic is not true of an equal area unbiased piston which will maintain any position it happens to be in when an equal pressure is experienced on each of its equal faces. If that position is offset greatly to the right or the left as may occur when either of the snubbing restrictions 23 or 23a is temporarily blocked or the relative flow rates through the two snubbers is not properly balanced during a change in system pressure, the accumulator piston 13 or desurger bladder member 113 may be bottomed or topped in its cylinder rendering it unable to absorb system surges and possibly causing damage to the bladder member.

In the event of a surge, snubbing restrictions 23 and 23a will prevent chambers 32 and 33 from feeling the surge pressure and piston 13 will move upward absorbing the surge. The system will return to its set position as the surge passes and the pressure once again equalizes at a balanced level.

It will be apparent that while applicant's system of automatic precharge gas pressure adjustment is particularly well adapted for accumulators and desurgers of the type shown, it can likewise be applied to all types of desurgers or accumulators wherein it is desired to adjust precharge gas pressure to equal system pressure while maintaining a constant precharge gas volume.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim is:

l. A control device for maintaining a substantially constant volume of precharge gas in a hydraulic device having two sections, the first of which is in communication with a variably pressurized hydraulic system and the second of which is filled with precharge gas at substantially the same pressure as the hydraulic system, said control device comprisiqg: I

a piston having first and second opposed aces, said first face of greater surface area than said second face;

a cylinder in which said piston is slidably and sealingly engaged, said piston dividing said cylinder into a first and second chamber faced by said first and second faces respectively, said first chamber exposed to hydraulic system pressure, said second chamber in communication with said second section and forming a closed variable volume precharge gas containing cavity therewith whereby changes in second chamber volume result in proportionally inverse changes in precharge gas pressure, and

means biasing said piston towards said first chamber.

2. The control device of claim 1 wherein said hydraulic device is a hydraulic desurger.

3. The control device of claim 1 wherein said hydraulic device is a hydraulic accumulator.

4. The control device of claim 1 wherein said biasing means is a spring, the spring constant of said spring being such as to supply a force opposed and substantially equal to that force supplied by hydraulic system pressure, within the expected operating ranges, acting on that amount of surface area by which the first face is greater than the second face.

5. The device of claim 4 wherein said piston carries a stem variably extending from said cylinder in response to movements of said piston.

6. The automatic precharge adjuster of claim 4 wherein the operating characteristics of said desurger may be varied by varying the spring constant of said spring biasing means.

7. The device of claim 5 wherein said stem carries visual idica of system pressure.

8. The control device of claim 4 additionally comprising means communicating said first chamber with said hydraulic system, said communication means having a snubbing restriction between said first chamber and said hydraulic system. 

1. A control device for maintaining a substantially constant volume of precharge gas in a hydraulic device having two sections, the first of which is in communication with a variably pressurized hydraulic system and the second of which is filled with precharge gas at substantially the same pressure as the hydraulic system, said control device comprising: a piston having first and second opposed faces, said first face of greater surface area than said second face; a cylinder in which said piston is slidably and sealingly engaged, said piston dividing said cylinder into a first and second chamber faced by said first and second faces respectively, said first chamber exposed to hydraulic system pressure, said second chamber in communication with said second section and forming a closed variable volume precharge gas containing cavity therewith whereby changes in second chamber volume result in proportionally inverse changes in precharge gas pressure, and means biasing said piston towards said first chamber.
 2. The control device of claim 1 wherein said hydraulic device is a hydraulic desurger.
 3. The control device of claim 1 wherein said hydraulic device is a hydraulic accumulator.
 4. The control device of claim 1 wherein said biasing means is a spring, the spring constant of said spring being such as to supply a force opposed and substantially equal to that force supplied by hydraulic system pressure, within the expected operating ranges, acting on that amount of surface area by which the first face is greater than the second face.
 5. The device of claim 4 wherein said piston carries a stem variably extending from said cylinder in response to movements of said piston.
 6. The automatic precharge adjuster of claim 4 wherein the operating characteristics of said desurger may be varied by varying the spring constant of said spring biasing means.
 7. The device of claim 5 wherein said stem carries visual idica of system pressure.
 8. The control device of claim 4 additionally comprising means communicating said first chamber with said hydraulic system, said communication means having a snubbing restriction between said first chamber and said hydraulic system. 